Microsoft Access 2010 : Exporting Information (part 1)

It is very simple to export any single object from one Access 2010 database to either another Access 2010 database or to an Access 2007 or Access 2003 database. You can’t, however, export multiple objects in one operation.

You can export a single table, form, or query from an Access 2010 database to an Excel 2010 workbook, or to a workbook that can be opened by versions of Excel as early as Excel 5.0/95. However, you cannot export reports.

When you export a table that contains a subdatasheet or a form that contains a subform, Access exports only the main datasheet or form. To export a subdatasheet or subform, you must perform another export operation on that object.

To combine multiple Access objects into a single Excel workbook, you first export the individual objects to different workbooks. Then you merge all the worksheets in Excel.

If you need to move a table or the results of a query to an existing Word document, it is often easiest to simply copy and paste the records from the datasheet. But if you want to work with the contents of a report in Word, you need to export the report.

When you export information from Access 2010 to Word, Access creates a Rich Text Format (RTF) document, which can be opened by Word and various other applications.

Text files are the lowest-common-denominator file format. Most applications can open, display, and save information in text format. The downside to text files is that they don’t contain any formatting information, so they look consistently plain in all applications.

Depending on what type of content you are trying to export from a database, you might have the option to export the layout along with the data. If you select this option, the unformatted text will be arranged in the text file much as it is in the Access object. If you don’t choose this option, the information will be saved in either delimited or fixed-length lines.

If you want people to be able to view a database object but not change it, you can save the object in the Portable Document Format (PDF) format or XML Paper Specification (XPS) format. Use the PDF format if you know that recipients have a PDF reader, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, installed on their computer. Use the XPS format if you need all fonts, images, and colors to render precisely on recipients’ computers.

Both the PDF and XPS formats are designed to deliver objects as electronic representations of the way they look when printed. The data in .pdf and .xps files is essentially static, and content cannot be easily edited, so these formats are ideal for objects that will be part of legal documents. Both types of files can easily be sent by e-mail to many recipients and can be made available on a Web page for downloading by anyone who wants them. However, the files cannot be opened, viewed, or edited in Office 2010 programs.

When you indicate that you want to export a database object in PDF or XPS format by clicking the PDF Or XPS button in the Export group on the External Data tab, the Publish As PDF Or XPS dialog box opens so that you can select the destination location and format, assign a name, and optimize the size of the file for your intended distribution method. You can click Options to display a dialog box where you can specify the records or pages to include in the .pdf or .xps version of the object and whether to include or exclude accessibility structure tags. When you click Publish, the object is saved with your specifications, and the Export wizard gives you the opportunity to save the export steps.

If you have permission to create content on a SharePoint site, you can export a table or query database object to the site as a SharePoint list. The list content is static and will not reflect changes made to the source table or query after the export operation. You can’t overwrite or add data to an existing list.

Many organizations that store accounting, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and other information on their computers have discovered the advantages of sharing this information within the company or with the rest of the world through a Web site. With Access, you can export tables, queries, forms, and reports as Web-ready HTML files. You can then view the objects in a Web browser, such as Windows Internet Explorer.

When you export a table, query, or form, Access converts it to an HTML table. When you export a report, Access converts it to a series of linked HTML files (one for each page of the report).